I saw a couple of these at a LGS on consignment for $330 and considering one as my first "on purpose" C&R purchase. I know next to nothing about them other than they look nice and I've seen first hand how accurate they are. I was wondering if I could get anyone to direct me to some K31 resources and give any personal opinions on them.

They are just about the coolest C&R rifle out there. I've only owned one (so far) but it made its impression.

Very well-built, extremely good accuracy, and very cool design. The 7.5x55 round is known for accuracy. Not cheap ammo, but I still see it for sale fairly regularly. There is a forum out there dedicated to Swiss pull-action rifles that I'm sure someone will link you to.

That counter looks like River City? K31s are well built and fairly accurate for most shooters. However, the Swiss and I don't see eye to eye and I can not shoot Swiss rifles. If and when you get it, take it to Sac Valley silhouette match next month on the 20th.

That counter looks like River City? K31s are well built and fairly accurate for most shooters. However, the Swiss and I don't see eye to eye and I can not shoot Swiss rifles. If and when you get it, take it to Sac Valley silhouette match next month on the 20th.

Now that I've made my purchase, I can let the cat outta the bag. Yes, this was at River City I picked up the one that had slightly more bluing and the matching magazine serial number. Stock was a bit more dirty, but that's because I believe it came straight outta the cosmo (saw some at the end of the bolt). The other is all matching as well, cleaner beech stock, no cosmo from what I could see, but the magazine was a mis-matched serial.

__________________Certainly there is no hunting like the hunting of man and those who have hunted armed men long enough and liked it, never really care for anything else thereafter.
Ernest Hemingway, "On the Blue Water," Esquire, April 1936

__________________ "The only thing necessary for the triumph [of evil] is for good men to do nothing." Edmund Burke speech of 23 April 1770, "Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents," delivered to the House of Commons.

Great price! it's an incredible rifle. I have one myself and my dad bought one when he was living in CH in the 70s. I grew up shooting it and it's an extremely accurate rifle. I bought the brownells kit to flatten the buttpad and added a limbsaver to it and it's really comfy to shoot now.

__________________
[FONT="Franklin Gothic Medium"]Your gun is as awesome as your wallet is fat. Same goes for your car's speed.[/FONT]

i had one. they're absoluetly stunning, but i parted with it in a trade for a firearm that's less costly to feed. it was a classic case of "my poverty but not my will consents"; any other reason and i would not have done so

Steve is being conservative. Shooting them @ 100 yards would not do it justice. To the right pilot, they always do well at our monthly silhouette and long range matches up to 800 yards. The GP-11 is a fairly accurate ammo.

I'm just trying to get a baseline on my rifles at 100 yards before extending them. At this point all 4 M39's shooting Russian Match ammo will outshoot my K31 with GP-11 or any commercial ammo I've tried (Hornaday SST, A-MAX, and BTSP, and PPU). I shoot from a bench with a scope to take the shooter out of the equation when testing rifles. The M39's generally shoot 1-1.5MOA with the match ammo and the K31 will shoot 1.5-2MOA but usually I get a flyer in a 5-shot group.

I was wondering how my K31 compares to other K31's in general to see if my rifle needs some work or not.

probably the rifle, at 100 yards all of my Swiss rifles (1911s, K31s & ZFK 55) with punch MOA from a rest.

__________________Certainly there is no hunting like the hunting of man and those who have hunted armed men long enough and liked it, never really care for anything else thereafter.
Ernest Hemingway, "On the Blue Water," Esquire, April 1936

The K31 is really one of the best surplus rifles and any serious collector should have one. Unfortunately it leads to the "swiss flu" and they tend to multiply. I have about 9 K31's as well as the older long rifles and the K11.

A side note, I will be selling off about 4-5 of the K31's within the next 30 days here in Sacramento on Calguns. Im thinning my collection down and I've been selling off the Mosins first. They will be FTF cash and carry, so if you don't get one yet, watch the Marketplace here for them.

Okay. So I set up my K31 according to swissrifles.com site and I'll tune the rear tang screw while I'm at the range. We'll see if it makes a difference.

Better don't do that, it can cause cracks in the trigger assembly housing. First the front screw dead tight and second the tang screw.

When playing with the tang screw is reducing your group size there is something wrong with the bedding at the front end of the receiver. To adjust the front end height of the receiver the Swiss use shims that come in four thickness sizes and they are inside the stock at the spot where the front receiver screw enters. Adjusting is done by taking out or adding shims.

Remember that these rifles are 60 or more years old and so is the wood of the stocks, wood tends to work and deform over the years and that makes a re-adjustment pretty normal.

__________________
Fight to your last cartridge, then fight with your bayonets.
No surrender. Fight to the death.

School is in session:
Great rifles that shoot very well.
On average the most accurate mil surplus rifle. Fun to shoot. Graff has ammo/brass for them.
Price has gone up if that is a deal. I paid $99 for mine and it looks new.
Look under buttplate to see if the guy issued the rifle put his info there on a piece of paper. Some did some did not.

Better don't do that, it can cause cracks in the trigger assembly housing. First the front screw dead tight and second the tang screw.

When playing with the tang screw is reducing your group size there is something wrong with the bedding at the front end of the receiver. To adjust the front end height of the receiver the Swiss use shims that come in four thickness sizes and they are inside the stock at the spot where the front receiver screw enters. Adjusting is done by taking out or adding shims.

Remember that these rifles are 60 or more years old and so is the wood of the stocks, wood tends to work and deform over the years and that makes a re-adjustment pretty normal.

Okay. I was worried about cracking the stock with a loose rear screw.

I did something a bit different a few weeks ago. I put a 0.005" shim under the tang as the action rocked back a little when the screws were tightened down without it and the muzzle raised off of the front of the stock. With the shim, it was seated and the groups were better but still not what I was expecting. I tried a 0.010" shim and it did not improve and even got a little worse.

Perhaps I'll try to work with the front shim instead. I have various thicknesses of brass I can try.

Ok. Sorry to hijack my Son's name and password, but he directed me to this one. Little time available for me right now so I'll make it short.
Guisan is right about that possibility. We've done this on a very large number of rifles as have many many other SRDC members without that happening. Can it happen? Of course. They're very old rifles, and metals can crystallize with time. Every rifle in the armoury has had this process performed, and the accuracy immediately improved. Two schools of thought. Drop the stock and look at the contact point.
Your rifle.... your decision.

P

__________________Latigo and P
An'' ole' Brer' Rabbit...... he set in de bushes..... he watch an' he wait... lay low an' he don' say nuffin'.

I like mine, but my shoulder does not. I keep wanting to fix my stock too. Not so far as to sand it down, but I'm torn between cleaning it and leaving it. Every time I think about cleaning it up everyone says it will diminish its value. Since it is wood and I feel like it should be re-sealed at some point to avoid it from drying out too much? Especially any areas where the the finish has worn off? Seems like im damned if I do and damned if I don't.

Take a look at the other thread I posted about bringing home my K31. I was told that Howard Feed'N'Wax would do the trick and it did. The one I got is great, but the stock has a lot of "character" if you will. I hit it with some Murphy's to clean the surface grime off and then used the wax on it. It took out all the grime that could be removed sans heavy scrubbing, brought out the grain, and moisturized the wood. Preserved everything and cleaned it up a little bit.

Ok. Sorry to hijack my Son's name and password, but he directed me to this one. Little time available for me right now so I'll make it short.
Guisan is right about that possibility. We've done this on a very large number of rifles as have many many other SRDC members without that happening. Can it happen? Of course. They're very old rifles, and metals can crystallize with time. Every rifle in the armoury has had this process performed, and the accuracy immediately improved. Two schools of thought. Drop the stock and look at the contact point.
Your rifle.... your decision.

P

P.
It's simple in fact, take off both barrel bands and remove the hand guard, check if both screws are dead tight and simply fold a dollar bill under the barrel and pass it all the way through till the front sight.
When that gives no complications you are ready for step two which is the upper handguard space but that is another story....

__________________
Fight to your last cartridge, then fight with your bayonets.
No surrender. Fight to the death.

P.
It's simple in fact, take off both barrel bands and remove the hand guard, check if both screws are dead tight and simply fold a dollar bill under the barrel and pass it all the way through till the front sight.
When that gives no complications you are ready for step two which is the upper handguard space but that is another story....

I've already done this and do not have any contact points under the barrel to the muzzle. That's when I noticed a tiny gap under the muzzle so I put the 0.005" shim under the tang and the gap (I have since removed the tang shim). The alternative would be to put a thinner shim at the action screw.

As for the handguard, I guess I can shoot it w/o the handguard and see what happens. If the groups were tighter, then I'd shim the handguard rails, shim the barrel band screws, and reinstall.

I was cleaning and reassembling the bolt for the first time yesterday and I noticed that the bolt seemed a little stiff/sticky when first being cocked. Is the K31 supposed to feel this way? I've only ever shot a few rounds out of a friend's 91/30, which was a bit smoother, and I'm assuming this is typical as this is compressing the spring on the pin (if I'm correct). Doing so again a second and third time yields no issues and is pretty smooth. The bolt is sufficiently lubed, but I want to make sure this is not a reassembly issue on my part. I think it's just me being a concerned father over a new gun, but I wanted to double check before I take it out and ruin something.

I've already done this and do not have any contact points under the barrel to the muzzle. That's when I noticed a tiny gap under the muzzle so I put the 0.005" shim under the tang and the gap (I have since removed the tang shim). The alternative would be to put a thinner shim at the action screw.

As for the handguard, I guess I can shoot it w/o the handguard and see what happens. If the groups were tighter, then I'd shim the handguard rails, shim the barrel band screws, and reinstall.

That's the wrong way, the handguard has a task also, compare it with a garden hose, when you hold that one some 8 inches from the end loosely the water goes everywhere, now hold it that same way some 2 inches from the muzzle and see what happens....

__________________
Fight to your last cartridge, then fight with your bayonets.
No surrender. Fight to the death.

That's the wrong way, the handguard has a task also, compare it with a garden hose, when you hold that one some 8 inches from the end loosely the water goes everywhere, now hold it that same way some 2 inches from the muzzle and see what happens....

Right, but I had already tried shimming the hand guard at the muzzle with a thin piece of cork on top of the barrel and the groups got bigger. However, I may have overtightened the front band.

I ended up trying the loosened (3/4 turn) tang screw and the group (5 shot) got tighter. As I tightened it (1/8 turn at a time), the groups got marginally larger. I'll admit that I don't really like the idea of the rear screw being loose, but it did seem to help.

I'm going to experiment with various thickness of shims under the action bolt and/or under the tang, as well as a shim at the muzzle to keep the front of the handguard a little tighter.

Shims in the front band can help but that is not the solution to the real problem.
The gap between the barrel and the opening where it leaves the wood should be tight all around so only little more as that dollar bill I mentioned and not more or it looses it's support function.
It is also the reason why sporterized K31's with the stock cut short loose their accuracy.

When a shot is fired the barrel end makes a swing, a screw-on damper can reduce that but it is actually the task of the stock and the handguard.

Putting a shim under the tang changes the angle of the triggerhousing against the wood buffer in the stock to the left and instead of fully against it only the lower part of the housing is and this can result in a cracked stock in the lower wrist of a cracked trigger assembly housing in the rear top section.

Sorry for the text, I'm posting at forums in other countries like for example Switzerland also, the left arrow is pointing to the spot where it cracks when you play with the tang screw, the recoil forces should be spread over the complete vertical section and not on just the lower part of it.
In this drawing you can also see the shims inside the stock where the front action screw goes through.

__________________
Fight to your last cartridge, then fight with your bayonets.
No surrender. Fight to the death.

Without a shim under the tang, when the screws are tightened down, the gap under the barrel at the muzzle was a bit more than needed for a dollar bill to slide under it. That's why I added the 0.005" shim under the tang and the gap was closed a bit. My theory was that the wood had been compressed at the tang due to overtightening of the tang screw over an extended period of time.

What I'd like to try is putting a thinner shim at the front action screw, however, the thick metal shim there appears to be embedded into the wood as it won't come out without some amount of force. Is there an easy way to remove it?

I also wanted to try shooting without a handguard in case it was touching somewhere other than at the muzzle. I had this happen with an M39 recently and it made a world of difference to sand down the high spot and only have it touch at the muzzle.

There's only one think plate/shim that I can see, unless there's one under it.

Edit: Okay, so I replaced the action screw shim with one that is slightly thinner. I can now run a dollar bill under the barrel from the front edge of the rear sight to the front sight. I have the rear band only tight enough to keep it from slipping over the retaining spring. The front band is cinched down to about 5 in/lb.